[revan]

I discovered this in late 2001, the basic story behind the disc is - a grade school music teacher back in the seventies decides to teach a bunch of kids about music by teaching them rock songs of the time. The kids are all from a rural community in Canada. They end up recording their concert on vinyl. A few years ago a record exec is browsing a used record store when she (or he) discovers the disc. and re-releases the disc. This thing sends chills up your spine - not the most technically advanced recording out there but the vocals are haunting.
R-

 

[Dr. Picker]

Revan,

A friend played this CD for me last spring. Reading your post triggered a memory of the kids singing "In My Room." The performances all had a special quality that I'm not used to hearing in school music concerts.

Thanks for bring it back to mind.

John

 

[revan]

It's not something you would leave in your cd player for heavy rotation, but it does bring you back. It brought back strong memories of my grade school music class and our teacher - who all the boys had a crush on.

R-

 

[glasskangaroo]

I agree with you, revan. This whole thing sends chills up and down my spine, as well. That child singing "Desperado" - could any adult on the planet pull off a rendition so haunting? All those little voices on Bowie's "Space Oddity". Yikes! Equally haunting is their version of "Wildfire" (yes, that horse song). The whole CD has real magic in it. Somehow the bad recording enhances the innocence of it all. I'd love a cleanly recorded version as a companion disc, but only if the performances were equally as unselfconscious.

There's something seriously powerful in hearing these kids sing songs whose lyrics are way off the map from any child's real life memory or experiences. Who would ever imagine school kids that young doing a version of Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon" or, of all things, the Beatle's "Long & Winding Road"?

You may or may not know it, revan, but this CD made it on nearly all of the Village Voice critic's top ten lists - some twenty lists in all - the year it was released (often at the very top of several lists and elsewhere above many of the edgiest, most challenging CDs of the year). This is the same Village Voice that unanimously picked "Endtroducing DJ Shadow" a few years before (a CD I love by the way). I was thrilled to see such an ultra post modern publication able to embrace "The Langley School Music Project"... music so utterly devoid of irony or self consciousness that it just melted away the most hardened Voice critic's rhetorical dogma. They couldn't help but submit. Somehow, this restored my faith in the possibilities of purity.

Astonishingly powerful stuff. Think I'll go and listen to it right now - glasskangaroo

 

[bubbaj]

Here's a link to an NPR program on the project. There's a lot of sample cuts played in the background. You can get an idea of what's on the disc.
NPR Program

 

[chewmanji]

Quote:

The kids are all from a rural community in Canada.

Ahem...not to nitpick or anything, Langley is actually a suburb of Vancouver, BC, so I'd hardly say it's a rural community.

Hmm we had a few articles written about this in our local papers last year. Makes me wanna take a listen. Sounds intriguing.